


missed connections

by celluloid



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Coming Out, First Love, Friendship, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Loss, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Regret, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 21:17:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20730911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: How much time did we lose, Eds?(The deadlights are intermittent, and Richie tries to cope.)





	1. 1

They’re intermittent, the deadlights.

Richie might think about calling Bev. He’ll get as far as scrolling down to her name on his contacts list, thumb hovering over it before he quickly presses the home button and slides his phone across the table and away from himself, before he does something stupid.

Other times he might actually get as far as actually selecting Ben’s name, and his thumb will hover over the call button before he locks his phone again and puts it screen down in front of him. Like, hey, I’m too chickenshit to talk to her myself, but maybe if I freak you out enough into giving her your phone and then I hear her voice on the other end and just hang up in a panic—

Other than the text thread between the five of them, Richie hasn’t spoken to any of them since they parted ways. Not physically. Not with his actual voice. Or any Voice, really. Because at least when type reveals your innermost feelings, it still isn’t necessarily _you_. It is but it isn’t - anyone could have written those things down. Only Richie could actually _say_ them.

But he doesn’t. He dwells.

_So who’s getting therapy?_ Bev kicks off a new line of conversation.

_how?_ Richie responds, almost immediately after she sends her first message.

_like actually, what do you say? when i was a kid, there was this killer clown…_

_I’m thinking about it, _Mike responds next. _At least once I’m settled in somewhere_

_where are you now, Mike? _Ben types. _don’t text and drive._

_Rest stop,_ Mike replies. _Coming up on Baltimore soon_

_shit mike, youre slow at this, _Richie types. _how are you not in florida yet_

_Scenic route, I’ve got time_

Richie stares at his phone, thinking of something to say, when he sees Bill’s name finally pop up as he’s typing something. _I’ve just been writing. I think my wife would probably appreciate it if I actually talked to someone, though._

_I’ve done a couple of searches, _Ben types. _might actually make an appointment next week or something._

_I found someone, _Bev types. _I really like them so far. You guys should really consider it._

Richie just stares at his phone. He should call her. Right now, even. She’d obviously answer. It would be a really, really good time to actually call.

But Bev is still typing, so he doesn’t.

_It’s not just the clown Rich, _she types. _We all went through something. You start there._

Okay, then, so Richie isn’t going to call her after all.

He sets his phone down on the table and slides it away from himself, then leans back on the couch so he’ll have to make an actual effort to get it again. He lets it vibrate away with each new message someone that isn’t him sends, and turns to stare over the couch and out his window instead.

He wants to talk to Bev, one on one, but he’s afraid to, and he isn’t quite sure why. They have something in common absolutely no other human being does, though: they both looked into the deadlights and came out of it alive.

That’s where it stops. Maybe. Because Richie knows that, for Bev, she saw their deaths.

(_Did you see Eddie’s, Bev?_ he might ask her. Only it wouldn’t be a question - he would be yelling, and he doesn’t want to yell at her, at any of them. Not anymore. He’d already done enough of that. _Was it all of us just committing suicide, like Stan? Or did you see his actual death? And if you did then why the FUCK DIDN’T YOU WARN—_)

And Richie doesn’t see anyone’s death. Not really. And they’re intermittent, the deadlights. Sometimes it’s when he goes to sleep, sometimes his nights are perfectly normal. Sometimes it’s when he shuts his eyes in thought, and he knows time hasn’t really passed, but it sure feels like it has by the time he opens them again. Sometimes it’s just in a blink.

And he knows that Bev’s nights are more peaceful now. She’d said as much. Maybe they’re all good nights now, with Ben by her side and her mind finally able to start moving on from 27-plus years of trauma.

And Richie… Richie…


	2. 2

Sometimes it goes like this:

He wakes up and immediately shuts his eyes again. He’s drooled onto his pillow a bit in sleep but he presses the side of his face further into it. It’s Los Angeles but it’s cold, somehow. Or maybe brisk, not cold, it doesn’t get properly cold in L.A., he knows this, he grew up in Maine for chrissake. Either way, he digs himself further under the blankets without really moving, shuffling his body further down the bed, using his free arm to pull the duvet up higher; using his other arm to pull the other heat source closer to him.

Eddie grumbles in protest each time but always obliges. Sometimes he’s annoyed at having been woken up, Richie’s consistently weird internal clock out of sync with that of a normal person’s (an Eddie’s); sometimes he’s annoyed at having his body manipulated; sometimes he’s annoyed because he’s Eddie and he’s Richie and that’s just always been a reality with the two of them.

But he always, always obliges. Sometimes it’s just a lazy spooning and Richie drifts back off to sleep, his grip tightening a little as his nose inadvertently buries itself in Eddie’s hair, and maybe if he puts his hand in the right spot he can feel Eddie’s heart beating away. Sometimes Eddie rolls over and holds his gaze, at least in theory - Richie’s pretty blind without his glasses, but he knows who this lovely little blur is and he finds the whites among the peach and the warm browns he knows are looking back at his colder blues - and he might hug him closer and Eddie’s own free arm might reach out and hold his face, caress his cheek for a moment before he might bury himself in Richie’s chest, warm and close. Sometimes he sits up partially, an arm propping him up, lording himself over Richie’s form for once before Richie uses his arm to pull Eddie back down, and Eddie squawks in surprise and Richie laughs and Eddie uses his lips to shut him up. Eddie would say that he’s won but Richie would consider those moments a draw.

Or sometimes it goes like this:

Richie is jolted awake by his obnoxious ringtone - just change it, Eddie says, to which Richie snorts in response and doubles, triples, whatever-number-they’re-on downs on it - and nearly has a heart attack. He rubs at his eyes with one hand as he blindly reaches out for his phone sitting on his nightstand with the other, missing several times but always catching it before it goes to voicemail.

“Yeah,” he answers, transferring his phone to his other hand and using his nightstand hand to blindly reach for his glasses.

“Jesus, are you still asleep?” Eddie’s voice comes through, accusatory.

“Well not anymore,” Richie says. He isn’t successfully locating his glasses but he can see the other side of the bed is empty, and it’s cold enough it’s probably been a couple of hours. The window behind the headboard is streaming in sunlight.

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, so?”

“I know you don’t have a real job but you could at least pretend to keep normal human hours. The sun goes up and you’re supposed to get up, too. Are you even getting any vitamin D?”

“You know I’m not,” Richie says, abandoning his search for his glasses and sitting up fully. He leans back against the headboard, a smile on his face, blankets pooling down in his lap as he props his knees up. “It’s only vitamin C for me, baby.”

Eddie pauses on the other end. “Do you mean like, you’re eating more fruit or—“

“Cocaine, Eds. I’m talking about cocaine.”

Richie’s grin feels like it’s threatening to split his face as he can practically see Eddie both blanch and pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Richie, please don’t do coke.”

“Aw, but it’s so—“

“I swear to god if you’re about to say something positive about it—“

“I mean, I only did it like three times. All in my twenties. And it was fun,” Richie says, still grinning. “I’m too old for that shit now though. You missed all my good years, man. You should’ve been there. Somewhere in there there’s a little Eddie who never got to let loose but oh, he’s ready, and I’ll show him the way if he wants—“

“Beep beep,” Eddie cuts him off. Richie snaps his mouth shut but keeps grinning.

“So was there something you wanted, or did you just want to yell at me?” Richie asks. He’s found his glasses now and allows clear sight to return to him. Now he’s got two choices: flop back down or swing his legs over the side of the bed and actually physically stand up. He’ll let Eddie decide for him in a moment. “Because I’m good with either.”

“I do want to be able to call you in the middle of the afternoon and not have that be your wakeup call.”

Legs over the side of the bed in preparation to stand it is. “Okay, and?”

Eddie sighs on the other end of the line. “I forgot to add milk to the grocery list this morning, so if you could do that. And then actually go and get groceries, so we have something to eat other than ramen or mac and cheese tonight.”

“Don’t you need milk to make mac and cheese?”

“You can use water.”

“Ew.” Richie actually, finally stands up at that and pads his way over to the bathroom. 

“What’s ‘ew’? You don’t even notice the difference.”

“Then what do you need milk for?”

“Uh, calcium? Which one of us has broken a bone before? For some reason I’m not super jazzed to go through that again.”

Richie laughs just as he reaches his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s a nice laugh, he thinks: not like the one he’ll put on for his act on stage but softer, genuine, maybe loving. Definitely loving. The lines on his face aren’t as prominent and he just feels warmer inside. He thinks, _Sometimes Eddie looks like that. When I tell the right joke or we’re watching a show and he curls up to me. _“Okay, okay, I can do that. Anything else?”

“Hmm,” Eddie says.

“Eds,” Richie warns, stopping to lean against the bathroom wall.

“Richie,” Eddie says in return.

And maybe it’s because Richie just woke up that he’s feeling weaker, lets the standoff end prematurely. “I love you,” he says. He swears his reflection looks younger.

“I love you too,” Eddie replies. “Gotta go. See you tonight.”

Or sometimes:

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Richie says, tilting his head back, exposing himself to more of the sun’s rays. Even though he’s wearing sunglasses, he shuts his eyes. He holds his shoes in one hand, Eddie’s hand in his other.

When he opens his eyes he can see Eddie shoot him a look through his peripheral vision. It just makes his smile bigger. “Long walks on the beach,” Eddie says. “Were you always this much of a romantic or is this new?”

“Not sure,” Richie says. “Never had anyone to be this romantic with before. Come on, though, tell me you don’t enjoy it.”

“It’s different from New York, that’s for sure,” Eddie says. He starts to swing their arms together slightly as they move forward. Richie’s pretty sure it’s only due to pent up anxiety and a fear from tripping over unseen-but-totally-there-in-Eddie’s-mind beach debris that keeps them from full out skipping. Maybe he’ll test that theory.

“Still a big city on the coast,” Richie says. “Still a good spot.”

“Not that I think I needed to literally flee to the other side of the country, but—“

“You didn’t flee, though, did you?”

Eddie turns to look at him. It’s hard to discern the meaning of his gaze behind his sunglasses, but he’s pretty sure he gets it. He’s always gotten Eddie, maybe. “No,” he says. “I just came to where you are.”

Richie beams at him, darts in for a quick kiss, and then starts trying to pull him backwards into the ocean all within the span of a couple of seconds. “Come on, let the waves lap at more than your toes.”

Eddie pulls back slightly, resisting. “Um, no?”

“Like, at least your ankles or something.”

“It’s polluted. You’re definitely going to catch something.”

“It’s an entire ocean and there’s nothing this close to the shore that’s going to come and get you, come on.”

Eddie digs his feet firmly into the sand. “No, absolutely not.”

“Eds, come on—“ is all Richie can get out before something finally gives: his force of pulling backwards, combined with his awkward angle, combined with Eddie’s rigidity, combined with Eddie suddenly having the gall to actually let go of his hand, and Richie is sent stumbling, falling into the ocean, landing on his ass and left to stare up in betrayal. His hands are splayed out behind him, shoes soaked now, bit of seawater from stronger waves splashing into his open mouth as the water dances up and around his midsection.

They both remain frozen for a moment before Eddie is half bent over, cackling, and Richie is yelling out a sharp, “Eddie, what the _fuck_—“

Eddie can’t answer, though, near wheezing as he clutches as his stomach. “Holy shit, your _face_—“

But Richie cuts him off, lunging for his ankles with his free hand. Eddie yelps at the contact as Richie pulls him back with him, and in a desperate attempt to overcompensate Eddie stumbles forwards, ultimately falling face first into the ocean and submerging for half a second before coming back up, hair plastered to his forehead, coughing.

Richie splashes him again.

Eddie shoots him a look, something that should probably be a death glare but the smile threatening to break through on his face completely nullifies it. “You dick,” he says. “Now my shoes are completely soaked through. We’re both gonna catch colds.”

“They’ll dry out,” Richie says.

“Who _knows_ what I just swallowed,” Eddie counters. “I could have drowned.”

“Nah,” Richie says. “I’d give you mouth to mouth, you’d be fine.”

Eddie snorts. Looks at him. Smiles. “Yeah?”

Richie smiles back. “Sure, and then some.”

“On the beach.”

“If you’re up for it.”

Eddie sends a small wave his way. “That is actually so profoundly stupid, do you even understand how much sand we’re already going to be bringing back to the house just from this, that shit _never_ leaves you—“

He keeps going but the words just fade into the background as Richie sits there, dopey smile crossing his face. Eventually Eddie notices and slows his pace. “What?”

“You’re just really cute, you know that?”

“We’re forty.”

“Still cute,” Richie says. He pushes himself up and holds his hand out to pull Eddie back up. “Alright, if we ever want our shoes to actually dry out, we should probably get them out of the water.”

“Finally, he speaks sense,” Eddie says, grinning as he accepts Richie’s hand and reemerges into mostly the air. They’re maybe about knee-deep at this point. “God, this is gonna take days.”

Richie smiles at him and squeezes his hand. “Good thing I like _really_ long walks on the beach.”

* * *

Sometimes it goes like this:

He wakes up and keeps his eyes open, blank, unseeing, blurry and with no real desire to bring the world into focus. Cold seeps through his body. He has one arm splayed out as far as it can go across his stupid California king size bed, which remains empty - he’s one person, he doesn’t need a bed this big, why the hell does he have it, _it’s not like anyone else is ever in it, anyway_ \- so he pulls it back in. Rolls over onto his back and stares up at the faraway ceiling. God, why does he even have a house this big? What the fuck is he supposed to do with it?

Richie just lies there. It’d be one thing if he was at least drifting in and out of consciousness, but no: he feels every second dragging by, like slow-moving grains of atoms taking their time sifting through his fingers. He lifts his arms from his sides and crosses them over his body, and it takes all the time in the world to get them there, like he’s dragging them up through quicksand. 

Each movement is more pointless than the last, but they’re all Richie can do.

_Someone else is supposed to be here, _he thinks. _They’re not right now but maybe one day they will be. _It’s a picture just out of reach - shorter than him, he knows that much for sure. Short hair? Yeah, maybe, that seems right. Flat chest? Well, maybe she makes up for it with her personality. Maybe if Richie could find a nice girl Richie, and his poor mom who went to her grave still feeling disappointed in and just not understanding her son could rest easy from the beyond, some sense telling her that he did it, he finally settled down, not with someone she’d like but at least he did it and she’d never have to meet her—

But that doesn’t feel right.

There’s supposed to be someone and when Richie gives up and puts his glasses on they don’t come into focus. They disappear completely. And then Richie will give up and he’ll shower and he won’t even bother with breakfast, just go to meet his agent, and he won’t listen to a word he says, he’ll just keep coasting on his career and at least he’s out of his stupid, empty house for a few hours.

Or sometimes it goes like this:

Richie groans as consciousness smacks him in the back of the head with the full force of a sledgehammer. He reaches up to gingerly touch his scalp, like that’s somehow a cure for a hangover. Then he recognizes the burning sensation in this throat, and he’ll lean over the side of his bed and see the hours-old puke just lying there. And at least now he knows not to step in it, but who knows if he’ll still be aware of that when he actually gets up.

He throws his head back against the pillow and even that’s a mistake. Richie coughs as he stares upwards and wonders what stupid divine intervention did it this time. Like what, he throws up and it doesn’t block his airway? He’s alone, how does he not choke? He can’t even get the dignity of an undignified death? For chrissake, he’s an entertainer, his obituary should show up in the paper like, _Richard Tozier passed away Sunday at the age of 40. Cause of death was asphyxiating on his own vomit after a night of drinking. His blood alcohol content was over five times the legal limit because he was just that fucking metal. Foul play is not suspected._

But nope, he passes out and he wakes up feeling like death without actually experiencing it.

Holding his head with one hand, Richie reaches for his glasses with the other. Hisses as the world comes back into focus, like that just made the hangover worse. Reaches for his phone and checks the time, see how late he slept.

Four in the afternoon. Cool. He’ll just ignore his head screaming at him and get up anyway.

There’s nothing in his fridge but another six pack of beer. Richie shrugs and takes a can; it’ll make as good a breakfast as any. He wanders around his home aimlessly and wonders, between sips, if anyone had tried to check on him at any point.

Glance down at his phone. No new notifications. No leftover notifications. No sign of human contact at all.

He’s not sure if he’s thankful for that or not. He recalls flashes of a loud childhood, a desperate need for attention going perpetually unfulfilled. Maybe he did have friends at some point but if he did they’re beyond the scope of his memory, faint shadows walking away from him.

But it’s fine now, because he gets attention when it counts, right? He looks out into faceless, sellout crowds, the stage lights obscuring their features, giving him no possible means to read anyone’s true thoughts. Their laughter is a tinny, echoing tune in his ears, and maybe his agent will slap him on the back and tell him he did a good job, and Richie will nod and go out and get absolutely fucking smashed at whatever dive bar after a show, always returning to his hotel or his home without a soul nearby, rinse and repeat.

Someone who cared about him is telling him he’ll die if he keeps this up. That it’s not a daily routine one can live on. But Richie can’t identify the voice - maybe it’s his subconscious, but it sure feels like it’s another person - and because he has no idea who it is then their pleading with him to stop means absolutely nothing.

One day he’ll succeed in getting this bender to kill him. Maybe then he’ll be able to recognize the voice.

Or sometimes:

Richie will emerge out on his rooftop and stare up at the polluted sky, settling down for a long while of just sitting there and inhaling the smog.

It’s probably bad for his lungs, he thinks. No, it definitely is. But it’s not like he has anything better to do: at least out here he gets the sounds of Los Angeles screaming at him, faraway traffic and occasional obscenities far preferable to the overwhelming silence that is his home.

He waits until darkness falls, the sun disappearing amidst a sea of faded but numerous colours. He isn’t even on anything good to enhance it, he just stares out blankly as light dips below the horizon and manmade light rushes in to take it place, drowning out any possible beauty the sky above could maybe ever offer.

It wasn’t always like this, Richie thinks. He has a vague memory of actually experiencing nature. Not that he was ever a boy scout or anything like that, but like, sometimes there was actually a tree around and when rain fell it smelled like the world growing instead of garbage infecting the air. But he’s used to the latter now, so who needs the former?

Richie stares up into the night sky, and keeps staring as it fades back into the morning. It stops being breezy, then, and the mugginess returns, and Richie is left to wonder, _Why does anyone even live here?_

_What am I doing?_

But he still takes it all in. His schedule allows for entire days of nothing, and that’s exactly what he does with himself. What else could he possibly have to do? He’s in the entertainment business, he doesn’t want to watch what anyone else puts out, doesn’t want to think about fucking work in his downtime. So that leaves him with…

Maybe he could try to meet someone.

Richie barks out a laugh into the smoggy dawn light at the thought. Yeah, because asshole 40-year-olds who have never had a meaningful relationship in their lives and are completely incapable of taking anybody seriously are so desirable. That would go over great.

“Hey, my name’s Richie, I’m a stand-up comic. I’m not gonna pull the ‘you might have heard of me’ shit but you might have. Anyway if you wanna bang that’s cool but what I’m really looking for is someone who will hold me and maybe not tell me it’s going to be okay, because nothing ever is, but at least let me cry into their shoulder every now and then. I know that’s a little deep of an ask for someone in a dive bar but hey, not like I got any fuckin’ better ideas. So whaddya say?”

Maybe if he’s lucky he’d get his teeth knocked out.

There’s someone over the horizon telling him he’d deserve it, but it’s not in a malicious way. It’s almost joking. He feels an instant kinship with them, thinks the rapport they could have would be great if only it were possible.

Richie loves this anonymous spirit, he thinks. He blows a kiss out to the sky before climbing back inside and passing out.


	3. 3

Richie’s eyes open. His head is lolled back on the couch, body still twisted slightly from when he’d moved to look out the window. He’s not sure how much time has passed but he doesn’t think he fell asleep, though it has been getting harder to tell lately.

He straightens himself out and runs a hand over his face, up and under his glasses. No, he didn’t fall asleep. He just has a headache coming in.

He’s still trying to get back into the throes of real life, but it’s tough. From what he’s gathered, Ben’s been able to pick up right where he left off, while Mike and Bev maybe had to collect a thing or two before setting off on something new entirely, giving them all the time in the world. But Richie had tour dates suddenly cancelled and Bill had to hightail it back to his movie shoot to pack his shit up, the end written without him, but he was so far past caring at that point it was nothing compared to everything that happened—

And okay, Richie having to direct his agent via half-assed text to come up with some nonsense about being sick or a family emergency or whatever he went with (he suspects sick, considering the amount of throwing up that had gone on) is a far cry from everything they’d faced. It’s laughably nothing. But Bill had gotten thrust right back into work life, already writing something new he’d said, and Richie has been doing an admirable job of completely putting things off.

He has no idea how he’s supposed to get back into the regular go of things. His reflex defence mechanism was to crack a joke or, apparently, to dig right back under that familiar repression but few things seem funny now and repression doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to be an option again.

It’s just an overwhelming sense of loss.

His phone starts vibrating again, more urgently this time, a call rather than a litany of texts. Richie lowers his hand from his face, sitting up straight as he readjusts his glasses. He leans forward and retrieves his phone, staring at who it is that might be calling him.

Bill.

Richie picks up. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Bill says. “You kinda stopped responding. Just checking in to see if you’re okay.”

“Is this you checking in or is it on behalf of everybody?” Richie asks, leaning forward. Is he tired? Is it just depression? He’ll always have time for his fellow Losers now, but he’s not really sure how much of it he has to expend.

“It’s for everybody,” Bill says. 

“Ah,” Richie says. “Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing to worry about over here.”

“Are you sure?” Bill asks, and he’s got that tone again, the one that could magnetize them. Richie isn’t sure if Bill is even aware of it; he definitely never used it on purpose when they were kids at least, it just always happened. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s still something to worry about with all of us.”

“Well, yeah,” Richie says. “I just mean right now.”

Bill’s silent on the other end for a minute, and Richie does start searching his brain for a shitty joke to break the tension, but before he can open his mouth again Bill comes back. “I don’t think I’m going to do therapy either,” he says.

Richie’s eyes open a little wider and he sits up straighter at that. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Bill continues. “Maybe down the line, but right now there’s just a lot I don’t want to talk about with a stranger. I don’t—“

“It’s different for us, huh?” Richie surprises himself by suddenly asking.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean everything’s changed for the others. Ben and Bev have their own thing now and Mike gets to do literally whatever he wants. But our circumstances didn’t change, did they? You go back to writing and I go back to…”

Richie falls silent, realizing he can’t finish that sentence; he hasn’t actually gone back to anything. Bill picks up on that. “I saw your website. Things are still cancelled?”

“I don’t know how to go back to it,” Richie says. “How did you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Bill says. “I got some closure, I think. I have a support system. Audra wasn’t happy with me at first but I think she saw the state I was in and… that helped. Do you have anybody to help you?”

Richie blinks. _You know I don’t _snaps through his mind but he manages to bite his tongue. Does Bill actually know that? He hasn’t exactly opened up to anybody other than himself lately. Not properly, at least.

“No,” he says.

“Oh,” Bill says. “Well, is there anybody—“

“_Bill,_” Richie cuts him off suddenly, a sharp strain to his throat, tears pricking at the edges of his eyes out of nowhere. Shit. This.

Bill, mercifully, falls silent. “Right,” he finally says, and Richie says a silent thank you that neither of them is actually voicing the specifics out loud. He just… doesn’t want that right now. “Can I make a different suggestion?”

“Shoot,” Richie says, letting a bit of that younger blind fanaticism kick in. He wants it to be true so badly. Bill always knew what to do when they were kids, he has to know now. 

“I know it’s coming from me, but try writing. Just… write. Anything. A journal, new material, whatever. Get your thoughts out of your head and let them lie someplace else. That’s helped me at least. Maybe it’ll work for you, too.”

Richie wants to scoff at it - he’s not the writer, Bill’s the writer, he’s the improviser if anything - but Bill is so sincere about it and it’s not like Richie’s strategy has worked so far, and he can at least recognize that he needs to do something different.

“Okay,” Richie says. “I might actually try that. Thanks, man.”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “Let me know, will you?”

“Sure thing. Hit me up if you’re ever in L.A.”

“Will do.”

They say their official goodbyes and after Richie goes to end the call he looks at the time, his messages. It’s early evening and he’s missed over a hundred from the group thread. He taps on that just to get rid of them; he doesn’t need to read all of it, doesn’t want to, and Bill can probably take care of any immediate loose ends if there are any. He doesn’t open up the messages from his agent; he isn’t going to leave him on read, he just isn’t going to read them.

Richie huffs as he falls backwards against his couch, phone still in his hand. He’s not sure how much longer he can get away with ignoring the outside world. For once, he might actually be afraid to make a move: his public social channels have all gone quiet and he knows the second he posts something things are going to blow up again. He also knows he can’t post anything without at least acknowledging his agent’s existence first. And there’s only one person he really, truly wants to talk to now and he can’t.

Write something, Bill told him. Maybe he actually will.

* * *

Richie decides to be a real person first.

He gets up, goes to get groceries, something he’s in desperate need of at this stage. Fills up on gas, thinks it over, goes into the liquor store. He hesitates outside of the pharmacy and turns back around, some sense of _that’s not really my place_ keeping him away.

When he gets back home he decides to actually make dinner. He cleans and does the laundry while he’s waiting for it, and changes into something more comfortable now that he doesn’t have to go back outside.

The sun has long set by the time he’s ready to settle back down, quietly eating his dinner, his laptop lying closed before him, its case staring at him and waiting.

_Okay, _he thinks, putting his plate aside when he’s had enough for that immediate moment. He feels a lot better, like a whole new person. Or at least something of a functioning one. _Let’s see what I’ve got._

He opens it up and stares at the blank word processor before him, empty white dominating the screen.

At some point he’s going to have to come up with a public statement, in all likelihood. An apology or an explanation or something.

_My name is Richie Tozier, and I’m_

“Not an alcoholic,” he says, pressing down on the backspace. He hunches over himself, hand brought up to his temples, pushing his hair up slightly. “Jesus, Bill, how do you do it.”

Richie looks back up at the screen. Actually, fuck the apology. He doesn’t owe anyone that. An explanation he could do, though, if he does feel like it. Maybe something different. Who knows.

_You know where the whole ‘Trashmouth’ thing came from? That’s actually been around as far back as I can remember. As a kid_

Jesus, does anyone really want to hear about his childhood? He deletes a couple of words but keeps the first two sentences intact and presses enter a couple of times. Maybe he can use that at some point. Not like he has any clue, but maybe.

_You know what my biggest problem might be? My mouth works faster than my brain, and my brain already works pretty damn fast. So I end up saying a bunch of shit I shouldn’t say. And that’s probably great for comedy, actually. I mean, I can’t exactly complain about how things have turned out. I mean, I can, but relatively_

_The funny thing about this, though, is there’s the rare time my mouth stops working, and then I’m just left there with my dick in my hand, and I don’t know what to do. I’m kinda going through one of those moments right now. They’re rare but when they happen_

_A few weeks ago my best friend died in my arms_

Richie stops. Removes his fingertips from the keyboard. Stares. Unceremoniously shuts his laptop and gets up. He paces back and forth for a couple of seconds or so, then goes back to his plate. Finishes dinner. Does the dishes. Dries his hands off. Returns to his laptop. Opens it again. Leans back with it resting on his lap.

_best friend_ stares out at him and he wonders if that’s the wording he should actually use. Was Eddie his best friend? He can’t think of any other best friends he’s had recently. Did Eddie have a best friend? Shit, would that even be possible for a risk analyst?

Is it even fair to label him a crush? A first crush? Is it fair to let the world at large know that when Eddie himself never did? (Eddie never knew, right? Oh god, what if he knew and just left it there? Does Richie suck that much? He couldn’t have known though, right? Only one person— thing— ever knew.)

_I’m_

Nope.

This is turning into a mess. Richie wonders if Bill’s writing is ever like this. Was it like this when he started? Is it like this now? How does he even get all his thoughts in one place? Richie’s brain works pretty fast, and his mouth works even faster than that, but his fingers aren’t quite there.

He takes a deep breath, trying to slow everything down. It’s late and he should probably be in bed by now but if he goes to bed like this, thinking about this, with nothing else done he’s never going to fall asleep. He’s just going to drive himself nuts, really. He wonders what that would look like.

_I tried to stay with you, you know. The others dragged me back out. The entire house was collapsing but I tried to stay. And then I tried to run back in, but they wouldn’t let me. Ben pulled me back, I think. And Mike. Bev was the first one who told me you were dead. I tried to hate them for it at first but I couldn’t do that._

_You’re still down there, then, aren’t you? Do you think I could go back? I know the entire house collapsed but there’s still something underneath it. Did you want a proper burial? What kind of a will did you leave behind? I know I won’t be on it but now I’m curious. You were so obsessed with the possibility of death, did you also think about what you wanted after you were gone?_

_Remember the dinner? Shit, I guess that was your last meal, wasn’t it? With the fortune cookies and everything. That really sucks. I mean the rest of the food was good though. And you were so pissed at me for questioning that you got married. But when I started saying that I got married, before I turned it into another joke on you, you didn’t seem to like that, either… You listened way more than the others did…_

_… Were you, too?_

_You had to have been, right?_

Richie moves his computer over to the side of the couch and throws his head back completely, throat bared to the ceiling, lips parted slightly. He blinks one too many times and doesn’t have the energy to stop what’s coming, just lets it wash over him, tracks starting to form down his cheeks.

_How much time did we lose, Eds?_


	4. 4

Richie wakes up to the sound of his phone going off.

He blindly reaches for it and squints at the name on the screen. The letters are blurry, but they don’t look like that of any of his friends. It’s probably his agent, who he hasn’t talked to in… four days? Five? A week? Yeah, no wonder he’s calling.

He throws his phone across the room. It bounces harmlessly to the floor, case protecting it. It keeps ringing. Richie makes a noise that’s like the half-hearted growl of a very tired, very frustrated man. It stops ringing, and a few minutes later, it dings: probably a voicemail.

Richie gets up, stumbling a little as his legs adjust to their sudden use, and retrieves his phone. He takes one look at it, then turns it off and falls backwards to sit on the foot of his bed.

Today’s probably going to be a him-only kind of day, he’s decided. He took care of some responsibilities yesterday. Maybe he can take care of some more tomorrow.

He falls back on his bed, hair splayed out beneath him, and stares up at the out-of-focus white ceiling. So he can’t make out the texture of it. Big deal.

He stares up at the nothingness and blinks back to the first time he left Derry, leaning against the side of a car rapidly filling with boxes. Eddie’s there, too. Shit, other than Mike they all left Derry, he just can’t remember who left first. Maybe they left at the same time. Just… not together.

“This sucks,” Richie says, throwing his head back against the car. “I’m not going to get to see you anymore.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, kicking at the gravel beneath his shoes. Richie looks over at him from his vantage point; two years ago he’d shot up and Eddie hadn’t. It had been an easy way to tease him, to consistently get the upper hand over him, but right now all he’s left to think is it’s pretty much going to be reduced to one last hug, his smaller body so much easier to wrap his arms around, and—

“We’ll keep in touch, though, right?” Eddie asks, looking up from his shoes to Richie’s eyes.

Richie straightens up at that, arms that had been loosely crossed over his chest falling limply to his sides.

“Yeah,” he says. “Of course.”

They both know it’s a lie.

From the bed, Richie’s frown deepens. From against the car, Richie gets an idea.

“Hey,” he says, reaching out to Eddie, one hand extended, “come with me.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, taking his hand. Richie tries to fight down the blush attacking his cheeks as he closes his fingers around Eddie’s, turning away and pulling. Eddie just follows along for once, zero resistance coming from him, his legs working that much quicker to keep pace. “Where are we going?”

“Away,” is all Richie can muster at that moment. He looks back at Eddie, slows for a second to let him catch up so they can be side by side. He shifts his hand to properly hold Eddie’s, his heart skipping a beat as Eddie lets him. He glances around as they descend further downhill, not the barrens but a place with more than enough foliage, there’s nobody around and—

“Rich, what are we doing?” Eddie asks. He extricates his hand from Richie’s, glancing at their surroundings. His eyes narrow. “What shit are you up to?”

Richie recoils dramatically, throwing a hand over his chest in mock offence. “Why Eddie, I never,” he busts out a southern belle voice. He moves his hand up to his forehead to fan it, like he’s got the vapours. “Never in all my life—“

“Richie,” Eddie says, glaring at him.

Richie lets his hand drop and he goes back to his normal voice. “Sorry.”

He’s left there, standing, looking awkwardly at Eddie. Eddie looks back. Richie licks his lips, an unconscious, nervous motion. Eddie stares at them. Richie immediately wants to die.

“Richie…” Eddie starts, but his voice is softer this time. Less accusatory, less demanding, more questioning. 

“Eddie,” Richie replies. He takes a step forward. Eddie doesn’t move. He takes another step forward. He closes the gap, standing right before him, and he moves his arms up, placing them on Eddie’s shoulders.

He looks around with his eyes again, checking his peripheral vision, to make sure they’re completely alone. They are. It’s just trees and shit.

“Eddie,” Richie says again. He swears he can feel Eddie’s heartbeat, they’re so close. It’s going about the same pace his is. He ducks down slightly, lips ghosting far too close to Eddie’s own. “Eddie, can I—“

Richie’s eyes snap back open on the bed. He throws a fist out, punching it as he stares up at that undefined white ceiling. That’s not a memory because that had never happened; he’d been too chickenshit to make it happen. They must have been in their late teens then, and Richie remembers just saying goodbye and that being that. They hadn’t kept in touch at all. They hadn’t even tried. And maybe they would have, if Richie had led him away from society for just that brief moment, if he could have—

If Eddie even would have been _okay_ with it to begin with—

Richie rolls over, burying his face into the mattress. Maybe they could have remembered each other if he’d actually tried to kiss him in real life, and if they remembered each other maybe all of this would have turned out differently. Maybe they would have transferred to go to college together, they could have been roommates, gotten their own shitty one-bedroom apartment, one shitty bed, and then when they got jobs and their lives clicked upgrade to what he has now, one big bed in a nice ass house but someone else to have it all with—

_No, go back further, _he thinks.

He goes to… after. When Eddie had made it out of the sewers alive, probably the worst for the wear, falling in greywater and covered in whatever it was It had puked all over him. They fall to the back of the group, wheeling their bikes through an eerily still quiet main street, like whatever fog had taken over the town is only slowly losing its grip over it.

Eddie catches Richie staring at him. Richie could immediately look away, pretending like he hasn’t been caught, or he could say, “Dude, you smell,” which is exactly what he does.

Eddie scrunches his nose at him. “No shit.”

“Actually—“

“Shut up,” Eddie says. He groans. “I don’t even want to think about it. My mom is going to freak…”

And Richie can’t help but think, as he takes in the small boy underneath all of that, wow. And some part of him can’t help but realize that Eddie is being really, really calm about being covered in all of that still. The Eddie of, what, 24 hours ago? would be losing it. Instead he’s just calmly wheeling his bike, and it makes Richie think, _If maybe his worst fear isn’t bothering him… _And then he stops thinking.

“Yeah she is,” Richie laughs, thinking about it. “You’re gonna walk in and she’s probably going to have a heart attack. Just keel over. It’ll put a hole in the floor.”

Eddie immediately looks up at him, face blanched under the muck, eyes wide and worried, and Richie thinks he might have gone too far.

“Shit, Eds, your mom isn’t going to have a heart attack,” he says.

But Eddie’s not convinced. “I took off and she didn’t know where I was going and if I show up like this…” He gags, as if just realizing the smell. “Oh god.”

“Eddie, it’s going to be fine.” And then a thought strikes Richie: a stupid thought, so of course he blurts it out without even considering the repercussions. “You can come over to my house and clean up there. My parents won’t mind. And then you’ll be perfect when you go back home.”

Eddie just gives him a quizzical look. “What?”

Richie levels him with a gaze as if he’s being forced to explain a very, very simple concept, since he’s committed to this now. “You come over to my house. Shower there. Then your mom doesn’t see you like that. No heart attack. Everyone’s happy.”

He can practically feel the disdain coming off of Eddie, his expression turning flat. “I only have these clothes, dipshit.”

Oh Jesus Christ Richie was _not_ prepared to go there. “We have a washing machine, dipshit.”

“And when they’re in the wash…”

Richie throws his arms up in the air in exasperation. “So you borrow my clothes, whatever, it’s not a big deal.”

The group has started tapering off, saying their quiet goodbyes, a promise hanging over the air that they’ll all meet up together soon. This isn’t over yet; at the very least, they have to debrief. Richie can feel it. He looks over at Eddie, a pleading look on his face: _we don’t have to separate yet. Please just come over._

Eddie seems like he can feel that promise, too. He looks down at his dirty cast in disgust, then back up at Richie, and something seems to relent within him. “Fine,” he says, and when they get to the street they would have separated at, Eddie turns and trails after Richie.

The house remains suspiciously empty, Richie calling out obnoxiously that he’s home as they enter and getting no response in return. Shrugging, he walks in. When he doesn’t hear Eddie’s footsteps following him, he turns back around, seeing him lingering at the door, good arm gripping just above his cast.

“What’s the hold up?” he asks.

Eddie frowns. “I should go back home, my mom’s probably worried out of her mind…”

“Just call her,” Richie says. “Tell her you’re fine and then clean up here.”

Eddie doesn’t move, and Richie sighs. “Or go back looking like that and explain it to her, it’s your life.”

That jerks Eddie into action, stepping forward into the hallway. “I’ll call her,” he says, moving to the kitchen, where he knows the phone is.

“I’ll… get you a towel or something, I guess,” Richie says, stepping away.

As he comes back down the steps, he catches Eddie’s half of the conversation. “No Mommy, I’m fine— No, I promise— I’m just at Richie’s— Mom— Mom, no, I told you—“ and his voice actually gets harder. “I told you I was helping my friends, Richie is my friend— Mommy— _Mom_—“ 

Richie steps back into his view and Eddie falls silent, phone still up to his face. When they catch eyes Eddie honestly looks furious, and Richie is so struck by it that for a second he thinks that gaze is directed at him. But it’s not - Eddie just closes his eyes and shakes his head. Richie can see the fight leaving him.

“Mom, I gotta go,” Eddie says. He opens his eyes again and they look almost vacant. Richie has no idea what to do with that, so painfully out of his element all of a sudden. “I’ll be home tonight. Yes, I— No— I know. I love you too.” And then he hangs up.

Richie just stands there. _Are you okay, _he considers asking, but not actually knowing what to go with, he just says, “There’s a towel for you in the bathroom upstairs.”

Eddie blinks, like he’s remembering where he is again. He suddenly looks so much smaller. Richie remembers him literally kicking the clown in the face, but now… And he really, really doesn’t know what to do. “Thanks,” Eddie says. “Do you have a plastic bag, too? For my cast.”

“Don’t you need to wash that too?”

“Probably not in the shower, I don’t know, I just know I should probably keep it from getting any more wet…”

“Oh,” Richie says. “Um.” He throws open kitchen cabinets at random until he finds the one with the garbage bags. “Will this work?”

Eddie watches him pull a garbage bag out. “Probably, yeah. Thanks.” He takes it in his good hand and doesn’t move, watching him.

“Uh,” Richie says, all too aware of his stare. “If you leave your clothes outside, I can put them in the washing machine or something, I guess…”

“Okay,” Eddie says. As he turns to follow Richie up the steps, up to the bathroom with the shower in it, he quietly adds on, “You should probably put yours in there, too.”

“Oh,” Richie says.

“Yeah. And shower after me. You’re kinda gross too.”

Richie doesn’t really feel gross, definitely not when he looks at Eddie, but… “Sure.”

So Richie finds himself throwing just two sets of clothes in the washing machine as he hears the shower going above him. He’d thrown another t-shirt on, one that completely dwarfs him, and shorts while he waits for his turn. And he’s left staring blankly at this machine he has no idea how to operate, looking at the extremely light but extremely disgusting load just sitting in it, continuing to soak in sewer waste.

He turns and finds the detergent, because he knows that much, and dumps an indiscriminate amount in. It’s a lot. It’s probably too much. Richie thinks it over and then adds more, because this is really, really gross, and he’d promised Eddie he would get him home clean, so. Satisfied, Richie closes the door and turns the machine on and… the shower is still going upstairs, he doesn’t know what else to do.

He looks back and sees their shoes just sitting there, gross and soaked through. He stares at them for a moment longer and then goes and takes them out to the lawn, turning the garden hose on and just spraying them for a while.

Do shoes need soap? Shit, he hopes not. He doesn’t know how to do that. He turns the hose off and, leaving it there, picks their shoes back up and puts them down outside the door, figuring the sun will dry them for him.

He doesn’t hear water running when he steps back inside, just the steady slosh of the washing machine. “Eddie? You there?” he calls up the steps.

“Yeah,” Eddie’s muffled voice reaches him. He steps out from the bathroom a minute later, hair dripping a little, holding the towel wrapped around his waist. “Uh, what do I…” his voice trails off, not knowing how to finish the question.

“Everything’s still in the wash,” Richie says. “Just go in my room, take whatever, I don’t care.” He really doesn’t - he trusts Eddie with his stuff. And it’s not like he has anything to hide in his room. From his parents, sure, but not from Eddie.

“Okay,” Eddie says, stepping further out, crossing the hall from bathroom to Richie’s room. “You should still shower.”

“I know, I know, I’m gonna.”

The water is freezing when Richie steps in. He wraps his arms around himself, shivering as his hair gets plastered to his skull, miserable. The water turns grimy as it falls from him and he looks down, makes out the dirty colouring swirling around the drain.

Eventually Richie finds the courage to straighten up and grab the soap. Gradually the water stops turning a murky grey, and Richie turns off the water, steps out, and dries himself off enough that he can put his new clothes back on.

He’s still cold. Richie leaves the bathroom, shivering, and sees the door to his room wide open. He steps in to find Eddie just sitting on his bed, wearing one of his shirts and a pair of shorts, and Richie really doesn’t know what to do with that.

Eddie looks up at him when he enters. “What?”

“Nothing,” Richie says on reflex. “The water was really cold.”

“Well yeah, you’re running the laundry, right?” Eddie asks. He cocks his head. “Actually, I think it stopped.”

Richie stops to listen, too, and realizes it’s gone quiet. “I think you’re right,” he says, turning to go back downstairs to the laundry room. Eddie follows him.

They’re greeted by the sight of soap suds all over the floor.

“Oh my god, Richie,” Eddie says, exasperation dominating his tone.

“What?” Richie asks. He steps over the suds spreading across the room, pouring out from the washing machine. “They were dirty.”

“You put too much—“

“You were showering forever, and they were _dirty_,” Richie says. He reaches in blindly to try to pull the clothes he can find out. “Aw, fuck.”

“What?” Eddie asks. It’s just soap suds, so he’s fine making his way up, too.

“Your shirt turned my shirt pink,” Richie says, holding up his formerly white shirt. “Oh, shit, my underwear too.”

“_What?_” Eddie asks, elbowing Richie aside so he can try to reach into the washing machine himself. “Oh my god, mine too. I have pink underwear now? My mom is gonna flip over that. Why did you put red and whites together? Why didn’t you do two loads?”

“What are you, a laundry expert?” Richie scoffs. “There’s like five pieces of clothing in there, why would I do two loads dude? Just deal with it.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I can’t let my mom see these.”

“Then don’t,” Richie says. He grabs everything else and starts throwing it in the dryer. “Come on, we still gotta—“

“Uh uh,” Eddie interrupts him, grabbing for their jeans. “You don’t put jeans in the dryer.” He turns to the laundry room’s clothes drying rack, looks to throw them over it.

“Okay Eds, seriously, when did you become the laundry expert?”

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie says automatically, purely concentrating on hanging up their jeans otherwise. He turns back around, looking worried. Richie turns the dryer on and stares back at him. “What do we do now?”

It’s more of an abstract question than a literal one. Eddie isn’t really asking what do they do now, in this exact moment - the answer is pretty obvious, they’ll raid the kitchen for snacks and watch TV or something until they hear the dryer stop - but it’s more like, now that the clown is gone, the thing that’s dominated most of their summer… what’s next?

Richie mulls the questions over. “We wait for the others, I guess,” he says. “Later.”

And then he takes Eddie’s good hand and drags him out of the laundry room. Eddie protests at the sudden shift in his weight, grumbling about how his other arm is still broken and could Richie not make any sudden movements, please, he wants it to get better. Richie beams back at him and Eddie scowls. “I’m serious, Rich.”

“Okay,” Richie says, and he lets go, leaving the two of them standing in the hallway.

And he stops.

And thinks.

This is maybe a moment, and instead of _what do we do now, _it’s _what does Richie do now._

What Richie would do:

“Can I be serious, too?” Richie would ask. Eddie might brush him off at first, but he’ll look at Richie, see his smirk replaced with solemnity, and nod, maybe a little afraid of what else could possibly be coming after the day they’ve had.

“I like you,” Richie would say.

Eddie would furrow his brows at him. “I like you too?” he’d ask, because he wouldn’t be able to see the angle Richie was getting at, or why he’d think this would be a good time.

“No,” Richie would say. “I _like_ you like you. Like-like. I… this isn’t coming out right at all, I don’t know how to…” And he’d grip at his hair in frustration, why would he take the plunge, why is this so impossible?

But he’d relent when he sees understanding come over Eddie’s face. He’d drop his arms back to his sides. And as time would move impossibly slow, he’d start to freak out again. The arcade all over again. But no Bowers this time, it’s just the two of them and—

And maybe Eddie would say, “I like you, too.”

And Richie would break. It would be stupid. He would start shaking and not know why, and Eddie would close the distance between them, wearing his own damn shirt, and he’d take one of Richie’s hands in his good one again, and maybe he’d pull him in closer. And Richie would start crying, maybe, and Eddie would pull back slightly just so they could really look at each other, and then lean up a little, making up for the slight height Richie has on him, and.

And they would find themselves alone in the clubhouse later, maybe. It would be the last day of summer and they’d be the only two there, Eddie wanting to be somewhere that wasn’t where his mom was and Richie wanting to be with Eddie, and with all that space to themselves they would both still end up on the hammock, Richie’s head higher up and Eddie’s feet further down at the other end to balance it out, Eddie’s head laying on Richie’s chest as they lightly swing and avoid thinking about how they have to go back to school tomorrow, their free time largely lost.

And Richie would deliberately slow his pace on his way to their first class of the new school year, and Eddie would slow with him, annoyed but doing it anyway, until the hallways are empty, and the bell rings, and Richie would take Eddie’s hand and squeeze it, and Eddie would blink in surprise but then smile up at him before they let go and get to class, technically late but not by enough for anyone to care.

And Richie would go over to Eddie’s after school, and Eddie would go over to Richie’s, and they’d do their homework at first, but as the school year progresses it would take longer and longer to get done, new distractions being explored, studying something else.

And by winter break, with Eddie gone, whisked away by his mom to go visit his aunts for the entire two weeks, Richie would be kicked out of the house for the day, told to go outside and do something other than sulk because _where did this come from_ his parents would have no clue. And he would go to Stan and say, “Can I tell you something?”

And Stan might say, “I think I already know. But you’re not being obvious. I’ve just had the misfortune of being around you two a lot.”

And when they’re back in school, Richie would talk to Eddie first, and then he’d go to Bill and say, “Can I tell you something?”

And Bill would ask, “What?”

And Richie would say, “You know how you had that thing with Bev?” And Bill would blush. And Richie would just follow it up with, “Me and Eddie.”

And Bill might say, “Oh.” And then he’d follow it up with, “Okay.”

And maybe, by the time prom rolls around for them, they’ll skip it, their friend group diminished as they’ve all started moving away. They’ll go to Mike’s, maybe, where there’s a lot of open space and his grandfather won’t be around and nobody will be working on the farm. It’ll get dark, and Mike will eventually say he’s ready to head back inside now, and Stan will say he’ll join him, and Richie and Eddie will be left alone without a soul in sight.

And then, when it’s time for one or both of them to move away, they’ll leave together. Richie won’t have to pull Eddie down into the brush. A car with just the two of them in it is private enough, maybe. Especially once they’re past city limits. Out of Maine. Just, somewhere, else.

What Richie does:

“Can I be serious, too?” Richie asks. Eddie brushes him off at first, but he looks at Richie, sees his smirk replaced with solemnity, and nods, maybe a little afraid of what else could possibly be coming after the day they’ve had.

“You still smell,” Richie says.

“Beep beep, Richie,” Eddie rolls his eyes. 

And Richie stares up at the out-of-focus white ceiling and says, “Fuck.”


	5. 5

The first thing Richie does is plug his laptop back in. The second thing he does is open it back up. The third thing he does is turn off the wifi. Nothing is going to sneak up on him - no sudden notifications, no surprise texts or emails, nothing. He’s not going out and nothing is coming in.

He stares at the still-open word processor, then hints enter a bunch of times, ignoring whatever gibberish he’d gotten down the previous day.

_I’ve decided something: we should get a do-over when we die. Not like reincarnation, but just, if you were a decent person, you get to look back on the expanse that was your life, pick a moment, and go back to it. You get to take everything you learned in life and decide if you made the right choice in that one moment and if you think you fucked up you get to do it all over again._

_Not if you were a shitty person, though. Then you don’t get shit, you just go to hell._

_I know that opens up, like, infinite timelines, so maybe it’s not real, but you still get to live your life again. Like if you were a good person you’d deserve it, right? And maybe it’s just for you. And then you find out if you made the right choice. Or if you would have been happier after all. And then you die for real. That seems fair, right?_

_I dunno, I just think something else should happen when you die. It’s really not fair otherwise, right?_

_Well this is a downer. Come for the comedy show, stay for an idiot’s sad philosophies on death. There isn’t even a punchline here is there? I think I just want this._

_And you’re probably thinking, ‘Wow, Trashmouth, just one moment? For you? How would you even pick which of the several thousand fuckups that make up your life to rectify?’ And then the joke’s on you because I’m pretty sure I know what would have made me happy— Oh don’t act surprised, all clowns are depressed, we just found a different way to deal with it and maybe I can’t do that anymore_

Richie stops, an odd compulsion coming over him. Not that he’s actually going to do something stupid, but.

He scrolls up then and reads what he’d written the previous night. He stops when he comes across _my best friend died in my arms _and stares at it. Then he clicks just after the last _d _in _best friend_ and hits the delete key again, removing the phrase entirely. It wasn’t the right one; not there.

All he hears is his own heartbeat. He leaves the sentence with a gaping hole in it and gets up, goes to the bathroom.

He’s not going to do anything, he just wants to know what it must have felt like, from what he read, from what Bev told them. He opens up his medicine cabinet, fishes out a spare razor blade, then goes to sit in his bathtub.

Staring up at the shower head, Richie thinks he probably should actually shower at some point today.

He holds the razor blade between his thumb and his index finger, squinting at it curiously. He looks down at his wrists, bare, exposed because he’s still wearing the short-sleeved shirt he’d slept in. Maybe he can see the veins.

Richie holds out his arm and lowers the blade to the underside of his wrist. He pushes down slightly and gasps at the cool touch of metal.

That seems to wake him up, because before he knows it he’s thrown the blade at the wall tiles and is standing on the other side of the bathroom, hugging the wall there, gasping and chest heaving like he’d only just narrowly escaped electrocution and dying in the bathtub through some other means, and, “What the fuck, Stan, how the fuck did you go through with that?”

It takes Richie another couple of minutes before the desire to throw up goes away, before his breathing calms down and he can stand up straight and normal again. Then he calmly turns heel and goes back to the safety of his living room couch, where his laptop has gone to sleep and where, when he turns it back on, it stares at him mockingly.

“Ugh,” Richie says.

_died in my arms_

_A few weeks ago my best friend killed himself._

Richie leans back again. Rubs at his wrists. Groans and goes to retrieve a hoodie because he can’t look at anything with veins right now and his stupid arms are seriously getting in the way while he tries to write shit out.

_I think I’ve been in a synagogue more often lately than a church, which is kind of weird for someone who grew up Catholic. Suicide is supposed to be a sin no matter what though, right? I don’t know, I’m not Jewish._

Richie thinks back to sitting on the synagogue’s steps. His mom had already left but he’d wanted to stay and wait for Stan, he’d told her. And she’d let him, because maybe she couldn’t understand why he was the way he was but at least she could accept it.

* * *

Richie is seriously considering giving up and going home already. A bunch of older people have stared at him as they’d left. He’s sure some of them were just curious but a lot of them feel judgmental.

He goes to rub the back of his neck, a weird nervous tic because he’s so rarely out of his element but right now he is, and his hand brushes up against that weird little hat he’d had to put on when he’d entered. Stan had called it a kippa, he remembers. He’d said something about how it was really just for bald spots, then laughed to himself at Richie’s expression.

“Does it look like I’m fucking bald, Stanley?”

“No, but maybe one day.”

Richie takes it off of his head and turns it over in his hands. He should return it. There had been that little bin just inside the entrance.

But just when he’s standing up to go back inside the doors push back against him, nearly knocking him over as Stan storms out. Richie is left to blink, briefly at a loss for words. 

Stan stops at the bottom of the steps. He turns around, staring up at Richie. Then he takes off again, hugging something to his chest, his pace furious and face hard.

Because it’s the quickest option, Richie puts the kippa back on his head and clears the steps in a single leap, chasing after Stan.

He catches up to him and they make their way to the opposite side of the building, looking out over nothing and in a spot there probably won’t be any adults coming by. Stan looks at him, then unceremoniously lets go of his tallit - he later tells Richie its name - and the candies they’d thrown at him earlier, during his Bar Mitzvah, come tumbling out onto the ground.

Richie had, of course, tried to nail him right between the eyes.

Richie had, of course, missed.

Stan glances over at Richie and then finally his face breaks into a smile.

Richie grins back and the two of them slump down and get to work on unwrapping the candies and welcoming the sugar high.

“I loved your speech,” Richie says after he’s had a couple and his mouth is free again for a moment. “You really pissed everyone off.”

“Thanks,” Stan says, tearing the plastic open on another one. “My dad just finished yelling at me.”

Richie looks at the tallit still draped across Stan’s shoulders. “Were you seriously holding onto candy that entire time you were being yelled at?”

“Well yeah, I earned it.”

They both laugh at that, and Richie claps Stan on the shoulder, shaking him lightly in affection. “I don’t know what you just did back in there, but I believe you. Genius, Stan the Man. Shit, so you really are a man now, huh?”

Stan shrugs Richie’s hand off of him. “I guess.”

“What’s it like? You know, for those of us still stuck in boyhood.”

“That’ll be you for a long time,” Stan says. He frowns then, a contemplative look crossing his face; he’s gone from joking mood to serious with no warning, like he sometimes does, Richie can tell. He’s staring out at nothing, a faraway look in his eyes. “It’s more of a community thing. Like in the congregation’s eyes I’m a man now. I’m one of them.”

“Yeah?” Richie asks.

Stan shakes his head. “That’s what it’s supposed to be, but you were there; how am I supposed to fit in there? Even ignoring almost everyone else there is way older. I already have my community, I didn’t need to go through that to be welcomed into a new one.”

He turns to look back at Richie, but his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Do you think we’ll all get back together again?”

Richie shrugs. He’s still kind of pissed at Bill. He hasn’t seen Eddie in like a month and it’s all Bill’s fault. “I guess we’ll see each other at school.”

Stan shakes his head. “That’s not the same.”

“I know,” Richie says, “it’s just… Eddie almost died, right? And he was yelling at Bill to come back and Bill just went and chased after that fucking thing. Like come on man, your brother is dead, Bowers didn’t stop picking on you because he went missing it’s because he’s _dead_, how much longer do we have to keep dancing around this? Aren’t you getting tired of it?”

Stan is quiet for so long Richie has to make sure he didn’t suddenly fall asleep on him. But finally, he whispers, “Yeah. I left right after you did. But I don’t want it all to be over forever.”

Richie looks at his legs splayed out before him on the ground. There are two candies left; he picks up one and Stan takes the other. Richie holds his candy out and Stan clinks his against it, like they’re wine glasses, before they finish off the last of the pile.

“Maybe you really are a man now,” Richie says. “That’s more mature than I want to be.”

Stan shrugs, quiet again. He shifts into a squat so he can start picking up all of the candy wrappers, like a bird pecking at the ground. Richie laughs at him. “And you’re such a nerd.” 

And Stan looks up and smiles back.

* * *

“Jesus, you’re sentimental.”

“Not particularly about Jesus, but sure,” Stan says, voice as dry as ever.

Richie kicks back against his dorm bed, legs up and crossed over one another, head propped up by pillows and headboard, one hand keeping the phone he’d moved as close to his bedside as possible to his ear, cord stretched. He reaches for his glasses with his free hand and takes them off, putting them on his nightstand, tired of being able to see for the moment. But at least his roommate isn’t in.

He imagines Stan is probably sitting at his desk somewhere across the country. Richie can’t remember what school he got into, just that it was almost definitely a good one. Not that Richie didn’t get into a good one, either, but majoring in a creative field is so much more volatile than math.

He could’ve done math, if he’d wanted to. He could’ve done anything. His dad had shrugged and told him to follow his dreams while his mom had asked if he was absolutely sure when he’d picked the arts, y_ou could be so much more_ echoing through his head, but he didn’t really want to be.

“Shit, mine are pissed I’m not going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Or both,” Stan had told him of his parents during an earlier call. “We can be disappointments together.” And it had made Richie feel better.

They’re maybe about halfway through their second semesters at school, both freshmen, Stan still on the east coast if quite a bit further south than Maine and Richie already completely on his own out west, but still in his element, enough raw talent and charisma making up for just how lonely he feels but isn’t sure why.

Stan is maybe the only childhood friend he can remember with clarity, and it’s entirely his doing. Not too long after arriving at his school Richie had gotten a letter from him, _here’s my dorm number, call me, _and he had, a way to keep in touch as they finally went their separate ways. He’d been odd on that first call, his mind elsewhere as though he was dreading a still unforeseen future rather than enjoying the moment, as depressing as it was to be reduced to voices only.

Richie had teased him for it, though. Hasn’t stopped teasing him for it. It was tough to worm one’s way under Stan’s shell but Richie had been living there for something like 13 years already; he’d give him shit if he wanted to because that was the kind of thing Stan would appreciate from very, very few people.

The calls aren’t always weekly but they’re regular enough, a Sunday night ritual before the school week has to start again, blessedly keeping Richie sober for shitty freshman early Monday morning classes.

They’re also growing less and less frequent and Richie can start to feel that sense of ending Stan must have felt. Some day soon they’ll stop entirely and they’ll never talk to each other again.

Richie shivers at the thought. Then he voices it.

Stan hums into the receiver. “Yeah,” he says. Richie shuts his eyes. “I guess this is what growing up is. You run out of time.”

“God, shit’s busy,” Richie groans into his phone. “Now I _have_ to keep my grades up or my parents are going to give me hell. Did you know I haven’t even been sent to the dean’s office once though? Like come on, someone let me get in trouble properly. I’m so tired all the time.”

“Same,” Stan says. Then, “Don’t get expelled.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “Yes, mom.”

Stan snorts. “I’d have raised you right.”

“_Oy vey,_” Richie shifts his voice into a nasally pitch, and Stan barks out a sharp laugh at that. “So what’s new?” It’s been two weeks since they’d last talked. Maybe three. Midterms had seemed like a good excuse to skip a call. Probably for the both of them, probably more on Stan’s end; Richie doesn’t really have to study that much.

Stan’s quiet for a moment, like he’s not even sure of the news he’s about to provide. “I met a nice Jewish girl,” he finally says. “At a party. Just after midterms.”

Richie sits up at that, interest piqued. “Stan, you went to a party? I’m so proud.”

“Beep beep,” Stan sighs. Then, “I got dragged out.”

Richie laughs. “Of course you did. And hey, a nice Jewish girl? That wouldn’t have been possible in Derry. Your parents are going to be so proud.”

He thinks he can hear the small smile on Stan’s face on the other end. “Yeah, if it works out I’ll have done one thing right. So it probably won’t.”

“Don’t think like that,” Richie says. He puts on a something of a fast-talking game show host voice; even he doesn’t know where he’s going with this, just that he doesn’t want to use his normal voice for this. “You’re a catch, Stanley. A total catch. Any girl would be lucky to have ya.”

“Thanks, Richie,” Stan deadpans, and Richie laughs.

“So what’s her name?”

“Patty.”

“Nice,” Richie says, in that way that indicates he’s heard but doesn’t have any real commentary to provide. It’s just a name, no face. He’ll probably never even meet this girl. “Meanwhile, my luck in finding a nice Jewish girl is going absolutely nowhere fast.”

“No self-respecting Jewish girl is ever going to get with you, Trashmouth,” Stan says.

Richie laughs. “Probably not,” he replies, and then falls quiet, like he’s not sure if this is a time to get suddenly personal out of nowhere or not.

But if any one person would understand his doing it, it would be Stan.

And it’s not like they have a lot of time left. Their lives are being pulled in completely different directions. Soon it’ll just stop. One of them will forget to make a call. And there won’t be any more calls. And they won’t even realize it.

Richie’s starting to get that sentiment from after Stan’s Bar Mitzvah. He had that big dramatic moment in becoming a man, but not really. And Richie can feel it creeping in, that maturity he’d never thought would come starting to settle in bit by bit, new priorities beginning to form as he starts to be more and more responsible for himself.

They’re both quiet.

“Richie?” Stan asks, because of course he felt the mood shift, too.

Richie puts his glasses back on and double checks that his roommate isn’t in their room. That their door is shut. Locked. And he makes his way back to his bed on the far side and lowers his voice. “Not sure my luck in finding any girl is going to go anywhere,” he says.

“Do you mean,” Stan starts, and then stops. Richie thinks he can hear some movement on the other end, like Stan is double checking that he’s completely alone, too.

“Yeah,” Richie says, but he doesn’t want to voice it, speak it into existence. Something’s off, though. And it’s easy enough to ignore most of the time, but Stan is so safe he understands where he’s going almost immediately.

God, Richie is going to miss him.

“Well,” Stan says, “welcome to the persecuted minorities club. I couldn’t tell you when the meetings are though. Still a Loser, after all.”

“Still a Loser,” Richie says, like a verbal pinky swear.


	6. 6

_A few weeks ago my best friend killed himself, and maybe the first love of my life died in my arms._

Richie reads over that sentence until the words become a blur. Was this what Bill had meant when he suggested he write something? Is this just for himself or is he going to try to make this all public? And if it’s the latter then how in the hell is he supposed to make this funny?

_Should I become a spoken word poet?_

And then Richie moves the laptop back over to the coffee table, closes it, lies down on the couch and drifts off into a dreamless sleep, not really wanting to think and not really wanting to exist.

But he wakes up, because of course he does, Stan’s voice reverberating in his skull, chiding him: _You still have a life to live so maybe just do that._

“Fuck you, Stan,” Richie groans, rubbing at his face. He checks the time. Looks outside the expansive window. The sun’s already going down and all he’s done today is sleep, daydream, have one weird suicidal-but-not encounter, and write down a bunch of nonsense he thinks he can maybe turn into something one day but it won’t be today.

In the meantime, he has a house full of groceries and a rebelling stomach, so he takes care of that, and even manages to brave his shower, any and all razor blades firmly out of his reach.

He feels a little better, at least physically; that sense of being a person after all those errands the day before growing stronger, and he wonders if this is the recovery process. He should really ask Bill how things are working out for him.

Or at least try to be productive. Maybe he can clean up this word document. Write an outline for it. _Something_ to be halfway organizational.

He ends up binging shitty dramas and lamenting his lack of ice cream so he can’t be a total cliche. He’d thought about comedy specials at first but that’s _work_ and he wants to take full advantage of the rest of this day off if he’s going to commit to stepping fully back into responsibility tomorrow.

At around maybe two in the morning, Richie decides to turn his phone back on.

He gets distracted in clearing out the notifications one by one, not really reading most of them. He’s halfway tempted to check the mentions on his Twitter account but figures no good will come from that. He impulsively deletes every voicemail he’s collected without listening to a single one of them, almost certainly a bad idea but he just wants to get rid of it all.

At some point he gets up and moves over to his desk. Stan’s letter is still staring up at him, not the last words they’d ever spoken to each other but Stan’s final ones nonetheless. He knows they all got identical letters. Knows that somewhere, Eddie would have gotten one, too, only he’d never read it.

Is left to wonder if maybe they’re hanging out together in the barrens now. Knows that’s stupid.

The envelope it came in is there, too, if a little torn up because Richie had had trouble opening it. Hadn’t wanted to open it. From Patricia Uris, in the end.

Richie is going to write back to her, he’s pretty sure. Not tonight, but in the next few days. _Hi, you don’t know me, but I was your husband’s best friend growing up. He told me about you right after you met, actually. We can share memories if you want. I loved that guy. _Not in the same way, but the next best one. He’ll figure out how to word it later.

He hopes she’ll respond, at least. If she liked Stan enough to marry him then she probably gets it. And he can only imagine what it must be like: your husband gets a phone call and suddenly he’s dead. At least Richie had had the decency to bomb a show and cancel a plethora of following ones and nothing more.

Jesus, he needs to get back into the real world. He really shouldn’t have deleted all those voicemails.

Richie goes back to where he’d put his phone down and resumes clearing things out. Their text thread looks like it hasn’t slowed down one bit since everyone had decided to endorse therapy. He quickly scrolls back down to the bottom, not wanting to read all of it; Bill had called him on their behalf so he must have told everyone that Richie was fine and he doesn’t need to see everything typed out like he’s an abstract concept, not really there.

There’s a really old text from just Bev to him asking if he’s okay. He feels bad about ignoring it - it’s what, 30 hours old now? Old - but he figures she got her answer.

Richie frowns. It’s the middle of the night. Everyone else is to the east of him; it’s even later for them. Or earlier.

He opens the text thread back up. There’s not much Mike in it, but he was probably busy driving. Nobody has said anything since maybe 7 p.m. his time. Later for them. An eight-hour gap.

_you guys know i only stuck around because of stan right?_

_like i was well on my way out of there. but then i remembered him and how he was and i didn’t leave after all_

_maybe eddie would still be alive if i had_

Shit. He hadn’t meant to hit send. It’s late and he’s spamming and shit.

_i dunno i was pretty done with all of it but i couldnt leave him_

_did you guys know we kept talking after we left derry? not for that long but_

_more than the rest of us did, i guess_

_still kinda fucks me up that hes dead_

_like we last spoke when we were… 19? thats over half a lifetime ago_

_i gave him shit for being sentimental and now look at me go!_

_stan the man knocks in a win from beyond the grave_

Richie frowns. He should turn his phone back off. Just take another day. Duck the calls he knows he’s going to get any time now. Hopefully nobody’s phone is actually going off while they’re trying to sleep.

_i think im starting to give off desperate, mentally unwell vibes but dont worry im not gonna do anything_

_no need to call me to check in im just an idiot who should go to sleep soon_

_or now_

_im not actually on anything im just depressed i think_

_maybe i should be on something? questions_

He puts his phone down. Exhales. Shuts the laptop he’s barely written anything into all day. Goes to brush his teeth, because the least he can do is practise proper dental hygiene. Finally puts away that spare razor blade he hadn’t gotten around to earlier.

Goes to bed. Tosses and turns for a couple of seconds. Opens up the thread again. It’s still just him.

_i just really miss them you know_

_like you all got something to go back to or something to look forward to and i got_

_um_

_i promise im not going to do anything please dont worry_

He takes a shaky breath. His exhale shudders just as much. He’s not going to cry. He hasn’t cried since Eddie. He doesn’t want to ever again.

_really wish we couldve gotten to see stan again though_

_i cant remember the actual last time we talked and that hurts_

_like that wasnt a derry-memory, that was just my brain deciding our last ever conversation wasnt important enough to remember_

_i remember he told me about meeting a girl though. and looks like he married her after all_

_of course he did, he found love early on and held onto it. sounds like him_

_i came out to him then too_

_he was the only person i did that for until… shit_

_now, i guess_

_im gay, by the way. in case that wasnt clear_

_debating going public with it. _Wait, was he? Is he now? What the fuck? _but i dunno yet. not really the decision you make at_

_shit, it’s late_

_sorry guys i’ll stop now_

_i promise im not going to do anything stupid though please dont worry_

Richie turns his screen off and puts his phone on his nightstand. He takes his glasses back off and puts them there with it. And then he rolls over and tries to maybe get some proper sleep.

The only reason he leaves his ringer on is in case one of them decides to call him after all. He owes them that much.

* * *

His phone wakes him up.

Richie groans as he blindly fumbles for it, head still turned in the opposite direction. He hears his glasses clatter to the floor. Shit. But he does succeed in getting ahold of his phone. He can’t read the number or the name on it - of course he can’t - but he can at least answer the call.

“Yeah,” he says, head still half-pushed into the pillow. Jesus, what time is it? “‘m fine.”

“Richard Tozier, what the fuck,” his agent’s voice snaps from the other end.

Richie jerks upright at that, suddenly completely awake. He thought it was going to be one of his friends checking in on him as soon as they saw his bullshit, not real life snapping at him.

_Vacation’s over, Tozier, _he thinks to himself, almost snorts. But he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t know if he’s ready for this but he doesn’t have a choice now.

Not like the last time he’d really talked to his agent was when he’d hastily been planning a flight to Maine, abandoning everyone around him with absolutely zero explanation.

“Jesus, Steve,” Richie says into his phone. He leans over the side of his bed, going to pick up his glasses. “What time is it?”

“What time is it? Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve nearly yells. Richie would wince if the phone was actually held close to his ear, but it’s not; he’s busy putting his glasses back on. “Do you even know how long it’s been since you said a full sentence to me?”

“Couple of weeks,” Richie mumbles. He pulls his phone back to check the time; seven in the morning. He’s on four hours of sleep. Not even. Ugh. “Why the hell are you calling so early?”

“Why— Do you have brain damage now, is that it? Why do you think, dipshit? We need to talk.”

“Just officially cancel the rest of the tour,” Richie says, pinching at his temples. He’s sober but between the lack of sleep and getting yelled at he already feels a major headache coming on. “Give full refunds, make everyone happy. I can’t do it anymore.”

Maybe it’s something in Richie’s tone. He’d started combative but now he’s just quiet, his last sentence full on defeat. Whatever it is, though, it makes his agent take pause.

“Rich, what’s wrong.” Steve’s voice isn’t exactly soft, but at least some of the fight seems to have gone out.

Richie hunches over himself. Eddie would probably say he has terrible posture. That he’s going to ruin his back doing this shit. But he’s already had one hell of a mid-life crisis, what are back problems to go with it? Like he doesn’t already have those.

“How much time do you have?” he laughs. It’s strained. He hasn’t talked about any of this outside the rest of the Losers and god, he’s not ready.

“Enough, if I’m going to get an explanation on why you suddenly left for weeks without actually telling anybody anything.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Richie sighs. It really is. There’s no… There are only four other people in existence who are going to understand, but he doesn’t need to tell them. They already know. This really isn’t fair.

“Try me,” Steve says, because he doesn’t know he can’t be tried.

Richie tries to think back on the last thing he’d done when he still had some degree of lucidity. Bill had told him to write shit down. The last things he wrote. Because if he’s going to do anything with it…

“Basically, my best friend killed himself and then the first guy I ever had a crush on literally died in my arms.” Richie shrugs, like Steve can see it; like it’s not a big deal after all, just the answer you give when someone asks you if rain is in the forecast and it’s like, shit, it’s L.A., what do you think?

His agent falls silent and Richie doesn’t exactly feel compelled to check if he’s still on the line. He stays sitting up in his bed, still hunched over himself, phone lightly pressed to the side of his face, head completely limp in exhaustion.

“You’re being serious,” Steve finally says.

“Yeah.”

“Because if you were trying to use that as an excuse, that might be a little over the top.”

“Shit, I wish it was an excuse. Do you know how much better I’d feel?”

They both go silent again. If Richie was paying attention, he’d swear he could hear the wheels in Steve’s head turning. As it is, though, he’s too focused on how he’s supposed to reintegrate with the real world and have a job again, because he already feels as though he’s not up to task.

Steve breaks the silence. “You said the first _guy_ you ever had a crush on…” he trails off, like he knows it’s weird to bring that up out of everything else, but maybe it’s easier to talk about that than the deaths of people only one person in the conversation was close to.

“Yeah, and he died in my arms,” Richie says. Nothing about how he still sees him sometimes, not in this world, some alternate plane, and sometimes he swears it’s real but if it is it’s not any reality he knows. He falls backwards, almost hitting his head on the headboard, instead spared by propped up pillows. “I’m gay, Steve.”

What’s the worst that could happen now? Really, what’s the worst thing? Eddie is already gone.

Another pause. Richie notes the animosity he’d first been greeted with is all gone now. It makes his stomach churn a little; that revelation should be greeted with violence, it’s always been that way. But still, saying it out loud - for the first time, he thinks - makes him feels a little better, he realizes.

But he’s still not even remotely ready for the public eye, which is going to be really tough in his line of work. 

“So we might be reworking the act, is what you’re saying,” Steve finally says.

That actually gets a small but genuine laugh out of Richie, though he’s not sure how much of it is just from sheer relief. He didn’t get yelled at or threatened. He’s fine, maybe. “Do you think I should come out publicly?” he asks, mouth moving faster than his brain, leaning right into acceptance and just. Going for it while it’s good. “I’m thinking about it but even I know enough to know that I’m not in any state to suddenly make a move like that.” A caveat, an excuse still available, though. Just in case.

“You hold onto that thought,” Steve says. “Where are you now?”

“Home.”

“Good. Actually come in to my office today and tell me what you want to do for damage control, at least.”

“Come in? Seriously?” Richie asks, shifting gears. “What’s the point of paying you if I have to physically come see you? You do the damage control stuff, you know I’m not capable of that sort of thing, that’s your job.”

“You might actually want a say in the long form explanation we release,” Steve says. “Hell, you aren’t even really telling me what happened. I just know you took off and you’re all fucked up now.”

It’s silent for a moment. And then.

“And you don’t sound right.”

Richie groans. He wonders if anything has gone on in the text thread. “I’m fine, I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“You already have, but stupid is relative,” Steve says. “I’d feel a lot better if you were physically here.”

Richie falls quiet at that. Is that really the impression he’s giving off now? He swears he isn’t. Just because one time he tries to fight his way back into a collapsing house, because he wanted to see what Stan felt in his last moments, because he wants to go back down to the sewers of some shit town in Maine when it was Eddie who was the one who had a sense of direction…

“This afternoon okay?” Richie asks, voice suddenly quiet. “I’m running on only like three hours of sleep right now, so…”

“Yeah, this afternoon’s fine,” Steve says. “Two o’clock. Actually show up, please.”

Richie nods, even though it doesn’t do anything. “Yeah, I will.”

And because it sounds like the conversation is about to end, and because he wants to get this out now, because it’s easier on the phone and he wants to make sure he doesn’t chicken out on himself: “And Steve? I’m trying to write my own stuff now, I think. I started something, at least.”

“Given your current state, I can’t imagine it’s funny.”

Richie shakes his head, again for his own benefit. “No. It’s incomprehensible shit. But I’m working on it. Maybe one day I can make it work. But I just… I don’t think I can go back to the old acts. I don’t think I can be like that again.” Like a part of him did succeed in staying at Neibolt and dying, maybe.

“Pardon my saying this, Rich, but I don’t think you actually know what you want right now,” Steve says. He’s gruff. He’s not angry anymore, but he isn’t exactly going to be a shoulder for Richie to cry on. That’s fine by him; he wouldn’t take it if offered, anyway. “No rash decisions. Nothing about your future. No big changes. Not right now. We’ll figure that out later. Two o’clock.” And then he hangs up.

Richie lets his phone fall out of his hands, onto the pillow beside him. He’s probably right. Richie does pay people to be smarter than him, after all. He’s just the voices.

He also feels like, considering everything, he just got let off far, far easier than he deserves. It’s really not going to be a pleasant afternoon. But it’s one he’s going to have to have sooner or later, so.

Maybe the others would be proud. He drifts back off.

He wakes back up four hours or so later of his own volition. His mind doesn’t particularly want to but his body says it’s good to go, it wants to eat, so he can make breakfast. So he does that, because that’s a normal adult thing to do, and the few times he’s been able to force himself back into normal actions he has genuinely started feeling a little better, so maybe if he keeps at it one day it’ll actually work and he won’t notice anymore.

He’s still dreading the afternoon but even that has to be normal, right? He’s never been particularly good about taking consequences seriously but things are different now.

Though it’s not really like things could get any worse, he reminds himself.

He goes back to retrieve his phone. The only thing new on it is the text thread.

Suddenly, Richie doesn’t feel too inclined to open it.

He opens it and scrolls up until he hits the litany of messages he sent out. Scrolls back down to the responses because yeah, he doesn’t need to read his own bullshit again. Though he can imagine just how well it was received if his agent suddenly ended up showing concern for him.

Bill had been the first to answer, a couple of hours after he’d finally passed out. _You know we’ll always be here for you, Richie, right?_

Then Bev and Ben, later, near simultaneously:

_We’ll help you get through this._

_we love you no matter what._

And Mike, from whatever rest stop or motel he’d ended up in, no real responsibilities and with the joys of sleeping in (which Richie is really feeling in solidarity with him right now): _They’re still as much a part of the group as you, as any of us_

_We’re not forgetting them or leaving anybody behind_

And then Bill had, mercifully, shifted things into old Stan and Eddie memories they were only still just uncovering. Richie reads through them, a small smile on his face; some of these he was there for and remembers, some of them he wasn’t. But he doesn’t have anything to contribute, himself: he’s still wrapped up in his own personal ones and stuck in some that never came to pass.

Shit. He’s not going to call Bev, he decides. She saw their deaths; he… he’s stuck on something better. Or worse. He’s not sure what to call it. But she’d told them about having nightmares for nearly 30 straight years and she doesn’t anymore and he doesn’t want to make her remember anything she doesn’t want to. It wouldn’t be fair of him to bring that all up again.

Maybe if she broaches the topic first.

She probably won’t.

And Richie is left to think on the deaths of possibilities. Sometimes his nights are good. Sometimes they’re not possible to deal with. Sometimes they’re nothing at all.

It’s only been a few weeks but he feels like it’s only just starting for him. There’s something beyond everything he knows that he’s seen and he’ll never be able to grasp it. Maybe once he’s dead. He wouldn’t have thought that possible before but now he doesn’t…

Richie grasps at the air in front of him like he can hold it, like it has an answer he’s looking for, something that will make sense of everything. He grasps at nothingness and feels it seep through and sift between his fingers. He turns his unblemished palm up and stops trying to comprehend, wondering if it’s comforting enough to know that he doesn’t know.

If Bev reaches out to him he’ll see if it’s a subject she’s okay with. He’s not going to initiate that. Don’t ruin a good thing for a friend. If he can handle it then he’ll handle it.

Richie looks at the time. He’s still got a couple of hours before he has to take any kind of plunge back into responsibility. He remembers something from Stan, once, you’re supposed to mourn for a week, and then you start to go back into things, and he’s done far longer than that. Though Stan hadn’t seemed particularly keen on there being a cutoff date, anyway.

_going back into the real world later today, any advice? _Richie asks the group. He’s okay. Maybe.


	7. 7

Richie wakes up to sunlight filtering in, everything around him bright, but not overwhelmingly so. A warmth radiates through the air, just the perfect temperature to continue lying there and nestle further in. He shifts his body over, downwards, so he can use Eddie’s chest as a pillow rather than a real one, and smiles dopily up at him as one of Eddie’s arms obliges and throws itself over him.

“Hey,” Richie says, never wanting to leave this moment, this feeling.

“Hey,” Eddie replies, bemused but seemingly just as content.

For once, Richie has no real desire to talk. He just wants to exist. He can’t recall ever feeling this whole in his life, like this is where he was always meant to be, and everything else he was ever vying for - attention, expression, a need to be known - can just fall away.

And if he can just continue to wrap himself up in the warmth, the white noise from the outside, maybe there’s a gull crying somewhere, waves lapping at the shore, if he can just focus on that, he can stay in this moment.

And for a little while, he does.

But his brain always worked too fast to ever truly settle down like that. He’s new to this, anyway. So he finds himself talking again, because after a lifetime of it that’s what comes naturally, not this.

“Should we get a dog?” Richie asks. “I don’t know if like, a Pomeranian, I don’t know if I can look at one again. But like, the opposite of that. A Great Dane or something.”

“I think you should get a dog,” Eddie says from above him.

Richie frowns. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Richie twists to extricate himself from Eddie, sit up properly so they can be at eye level. Eddie’s expression is neutral but earnest; there’s a warmth coming from him, too, Richie can see it, but he can’t feel it. He’s just upset now, though, eyes maybe starting to water a little. “Don’t talk like you’re not a part of this.”

“I’m not, though.”

“Can we just—“ Richie fumbles for the words. It’s not like their normal, when they could riff off of each other so easily, their natural state. That just upsets him further. “Can we just take this moment and keep it? Everything was so good a second ago. Why did you ruin it?”

“Why did _I_ ruin it?” Eddie sputters, his eyes narrowing at Richie as he shakes his head, incredulous. “_I’m_ not the one who ruined anything—“

“Yeah you did!” Richie says.

“What, by dying?”

“Yes!”

“Do you think I wanted to?”

“No.”

“Do _you_ want to?”

“I don’t know!”

Richie is the first to break their shared gaze. He turns to look downwards at his lap, one fist balled in the sheets, the other coming up to run through his hair. “I don’t know,” he says again, after all his instances and telling other people not to worry about him and there’s only one he can really be honest with and it wasn’t until just now.

He looks back up at Eddie when he feels his hand around him, pulling him in closer, a half-hug limited by their current positions. He’s stunned for a second before finally leaning into it.

“So how did your meeting go?” Eddie breaks the silence.

Richie blinks. Right. Real life. Responsibilities. Employment. “Not great, but I don’t think there was ever a chance it would,” he says. “There was a lot of yelling. Even when I just stood there and took it there was… And it wasn’t like they were saying anything that was wrong, or, or actually hateful, but it still reminded me of being a deer in the headlights at that sort of thing growing up, you know? I maybe had a breakdown in the bathroom after. But I felt better after that. So maybe it went okay after all.”

He shrugs and Eddie’s arm withdraws. “You ever have anything like that, growing up?”

Eddie presses his lips together. “Probably, but I don’t think I ever understood it. Like none of it was applicable so it didn’t matter.”

“Yeah, I understood it,” Richie sighs. He falls back to lie back down and Eddie falls back with him. They stare upwards together.

“It’s not like I can be outright fired though,” Richie says, “so that’s the good part. I’m the name and if they lose me someone else is just going to pick me up sooner or later. Plus my agent actually really did vouch for me, I think when he saw me he realized I hadn’t been joking about all the dying and…”

Richie lets his voice trail off into nothingness. He turns his head to look at Eddie and blindly reaches for his hand. Eddie takes it. “I’m not going on tour anytime soon again, which I think they think is a punishment because, you know, money, but I don’t want to… Bill told me to try writing stuff down and I’m doing that now. I’ll come up with my own act. And maybe by then I’ll be ready.”

“So you write your own shit now?” Eddie asks, somehow proud and aggressive all at once.

A long-term relationship might have been exhausting, Richie thinks, but they would have worked it out.

“Who knows,” Richie replies. “But I can try, right?”

Then, “Do you ever think about everything that we lost?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific there,” Eddie says.

Richie squeezes his hand, a reassurance that he’s actually holding it right now, that this is a thing they can actually do. “Imagine if we didn’t grow up in a shit hole, if we were in a big city, and we were born later, when, when people would be more okay with it. I mean I obviously had a crush on you. You had to have known that, right? What if we’d actually _done_ something with it. High school could have been fun. College. Our twenties, shit, our thirties. Literal decades of being miserable just gone.”

“You don’t know that,” Eddie says. “Something else could have happened. We could have ended up hating each other. Or you would have stressed me out into a heart attack.”

“Yeah, but then I’d visit you in the hospital and you’d forgive me.”

“You really think I’d forgive someone who gave me a heart attack?”

Richie just stares at him. He breaks out into a grin. “Yeah, you would.”

“Ugh,” Eddie groans. “You’re just looking at everything through rose-tinted glasses now.”

“What other choice do I have?”

Eddie hesitates. He moves to sit up, pulling his hand away from Richie’s as he does so, despite the resistance he faces. He stares forwards, not looking at him. “You move on.”

Richie shoots up beside him, leaning more into his personal space. “No, I don’t.”

Eddie still won’t look at him. “Yeah, you do. Dude, you went like twenty years not knowing I existed. You had an entire life away from Derry. You have an entire life ahead of you. You met all those people, forged all those new relationships… You’re so much more than just me, you move on to that.”

“Fuck that,” Richie sputters. “Fuck that— Eds, look at me. Eddie, stop ignoring me, actually look at me you asshole—“

Eddie does. “What?”

“If you had made it out of Neibolt, would you have come back with me?”

Eddie is silent.

“Would you have?” Richie presses. He can do this all day if he has to. He used to with Eddie, he remembers that now, clear as day. He’s an expert at it.

“Yeah,” Eddie concedes.

“So don’t fucking tell me to move on when you wouldn’t have and I _can’t_,” Richie says. “I don’t— I don’t know what any of this is, just I keep seeing you. It’s not like I have any control over it. Middle of the night? Sure. Daydreams? Yeah, those too. Any single second I just happen to zone out and— I don’t even know what I’m doing right now, I don’t know how time works in this, I just know I got caught in the deadlights and now it _keeps happening_ and it _won’t stop_ and I don’t know if it would be better if it did or if I should just be grateful I get to keep seeing you even though I’m just reminded of the past we were robbed of and the future we can’t have, and you want me to _move on_? Fuck you.”

Eddie stares at him, like he definitely can’t justify looking anywhere else now. He worries at his lip. “Maybe Bev was right, maybe you should get therapy after all—“

“And say what?” Richie snaps. “I can’t even explain it to myself, I’m supposed to tell someone who doesn’t know anything about how Derry worked? There’s— There’s something in my head now, it’s permanently fucked, I know now there’s more beyond this but I can’t do anything about it and— Are you even real? Is it even really you, Eddie? Or is it just an artifact of the fucking clown embedded in my subconscious? Is it just me somehow twisting this into what I want it to be? Eddie, what is this?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says. “You don’t know and I don’t know. I just know we’re not going to get what we want.”

“_Get therapy, move on,_” Richie scoffs. “See, this was just— It was nice before. Why can’t we just go back to when it was nice?”

“Okay,” Eddie says.

“You remember at the end of that summer, after everything, when it was the last day before school and it was just the two of us in the clubhouse? Everyone else had shit with their parents or whatever, or Ben and Stan were probably actually seriously preparing for the new school year, and you were so restless you came to my house and actually whisked me away? My mom was so pissed at you, she was yelling after us—“

“You’d just gotten your cast off and she thought you were going to break your arm again,” Richie says.

“Or that you were going to break it yourself,” Eddie laughs. He looks down at it, unblemished now. 

“Like I would have ever hurt you,” Richie says. 

“She didn’t know that—“

“Are you serious?” Richie punches Eddie in the arm. “Dude, you’ve got to stop making excuses for her. She kept you locked away for like a month.”

Eddie shrugs. “But you literally burst in, uninvited, and actually dragged me outside, the wheel from your bike was still spinning from where you’d dumped it on my lawn—“

“And you got on yours and we just sped off while she yelled at us, yeah,” Richie smiles. “But her voice didn’t carry that far and once we got to the barrens it was just the two of us. It was like, what, early afternoon? I remember it was hot out.”

“Yeah, and it was a lot cooler underground so we went into the clubhouse,” Eddie says. “And I— god, you know I wanted to wear those shower caps Stan brought, right? Spiders—“

“I stand by what I said back then,” Richie says. “We were underground anyway, if the spiders wanted to crawl on you they were going to.”

“I guess,” Eddie says. “Stan was really proud of that idea, though.”

Richie falls silent for a moment. “Yeah, he was.” Then, “Hey, did you ever get his letter?”

“Letter?” Eddie asks. “He sent a letter?”

“I— nevermind.”

Eddie shrugs. “I guess it was fine I never wore a shower cap, clearly nothing happened down there. But… ugh.” He shudders. Richie punches him in the arm again. Eddie glares. 

“I beat you to the hammock, though. I knew you were going to start shit so I made sure I got in it first.”

“Right,” Richie says. “And I played it cool, like, whatever, it’s just a dumb hammock, you take it for ten minutes.”

“But I didn’t give it up after ten minutes,” Eddie grins at him.

“No, and I graciously ignored that,” Richie says. “I just sat on some boxes or whatever and read there.”

“You were getting pissed though. I could tell.”

“Well yeah, you kept making a show of how comfortable you were, always shifting in it, getting settled, sighing, you obnoxious little shit—“

“Maybe I was just really comfortable.”

“You definitely weren’t.” Richie grins back at him. It feels like before. Even when they were back at the restaurant, before everything had so quickly gone to shit, and were just talking, Stan’s empty seat between them not looming but just unacknowledged. “You were trying to get my attention.”

“It worked,” Eddie says.

“I tried to swing the hammock upside-down so you’d fall out.”

Eddie’s grin breaks. “Yeah, that… that was terrifying, actually.”

“Baby,” Richie snorts. “Not like I succeeded. You sure screamed a lot though. ‘Richie, stop! Richie this is so not funny! Richie you’re going to break my neck!’”

Eddie scrunches his nose at Richie’s too-close impression of his voice. “I’m so thankful you sucked at that when we were kids.”

“Never sucked, just got better. The talent was always there,” Richie beams at him. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“You sucked.”

“And you were screaming so much from the hammock I stopped. But you still didn’t get out. I had to copy you from before and climb in with you.”

“How terrifying was that?” Eddie asks.

Richie groans and shuts his eyes. “God, I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest, but I couldn’t let you show me up like that,” he says. 

“That’s why you got in so our heads would be on the same side?”

“I honestly didn’t even realize,” Richie opens his eyes back up and takes in Eddie’s face. It’s so relaxed in a way he couldn’t really remember before. Like they’re both truly happy now. “When I did it— it was too late to freak out, I guess. Or then we’d both fall out and shit, maybe I would have broken your neck.”

Eddie is silent for a second, pensive. “I could actually feel your heartbeat, you know.”

Richie blanches. “And you didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t— I didn’t want to acknowledge it,” Eddie says.

“Maybe things would be different if you had,” Richie points out.

“Or if you had,” Eddie retorts.

“Touche.” That’s maybe what’s killing Richie the most about all of his regret - if just one of them had done things a little differently, maybe everything could have been different, they could have never lost touch, they could have—

“It was so awkward,” Eddie laughs, snapping Richie from his resurfacing pensiveness. “We should not have done that.”

“Yeah,” Richie snorts in spite of himself. “But not like I was gonna concede defeat, and you obviously weren’t…

“I think we fell asleep in our stalemate.”

“Yeah, we did. I woke up and you had your head on my chest.”

“Hey,” Richie says. “Lie back down.”

Eddie gives him a quizzical look, but complies. Richie follows suit, going back to his original position when he’d woken up, maybe a little closer, maybe a bit higher up, his head by the crook of Eddie’s neck, looking up, his legs sticking out so much further than Eddie’s. “You weren’t that much shorter than me back then,” he sighs, kicking them slightly. “But like this.”

Eddie tries to stretch out reflexively. “Shut up, five-nine is a perfectly average height—“

“You’re tiny, Eddie.”

“Bill’s tiny. He has that presence about him but he’s the tiny one. I’m average—“

“You’re small.”

“Ugh, shut up.” Eddie frees one of his arms, uses it to try to push Richie’s head further away. Richie just laughs. “But I woke up to you like that and I just… your face… I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“I… didn’t know that,” Richie says. Maybe it didn’t happen like that. Maybe he’s just hearing what he wants to hear. “I thought I woke up first. And I didn’t want— I didn’t want you to hate me.”

“I might have been pretending to be asleep,” Eddie says.

It’s all Richie can do to just shut his eyes again. “Oh, fuck.”

“Yeah,” Eddie whispers.

Richie throws his free arm over Eddie’s chest and pulls him in closer. Eddie sighs and shifts downwards himself so that they’re nose to nose. Richie opens his eyes again at the movement, sees their proximity, can’t look away.

“I miss you so much, man,” he says.

“I know.”

“We really fucked up.”

“I know.”

“This is… I don’t know what to do.”

“I can’t tell you,” Eddie says. “But I hope you figure it out.”

Richie just nods. He sits up a little and Eddie follows him. He moves to take his glasses off, throw them away somewhere, and then reaches out for the back of Eddie’s head, pulling him in closer, fingers just barely threading through his relatively short hair. Eddie obliges.

* * *

Richie wakes up to sunlight filtering in, alone.


End file.
